40% of Norwegians - Ban Israeli products

AFP2 June 2010

Survey conducted two days after deadly Navy raid shows 9.5% of respondents already boycotting Israeli products, while 33.5% would like to. Head of country's Socialist Left party calls on international community to boycott arms trade with Jewish state

More than 40% of Norwegians are already boycotting Israeli products or are in favor of doing so, according to a poll published Wednesday, two days after Israel's deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla.

The survey, conducted on Tuesday by the InFact institute and published Wednesday in the Verdens Gang tabloid, showed that 9.5% of the Norwegians questioned were already boycotting Israeli products, while 33.5% said they would like to.

Only 29.4% of the 1,028 people polled said they were opposed to such a boycott, while 27.6% said they had no opinion on the issue.

Kristin Halvorsen, Norway's health minister and head of the Socialist Left party, called on Tuesday for the international community to boycott arms trade with Israel, in line with Norway's existing policy.

Norway on Monday summoned the Israeli ambassador in Oslo, condemning the raid as "unacceptable" and calling for "an immediate, independent international inquiry."

Three Norwegians were among the 682 people from 42 countries aboard the six ships that were towed to an Israeli port after Monday's bloody raid that left nine pro-Palestinian activists dead.

The Norwegians were expected to soon be expelled from Israel along with hundreds of other foreign nationals, authorities in Oslo said.

"Today is Al-Quds Day, it was started by Ayatullah Khomeini, one of the first things he did after the Iranian revolution was to impose boycotts and sanctions on the apartheid state of Israel and the apartheid state of South Africa. South Africa's apartheid state is history, now we have got to turn on the apartheid state of Israel - we have to impose our own boycotts.."